Shocked that companies and mutual funds would invest OPM (Other People's Money) in high-risk investments, the Shocked Investor was originally on a mission to find out if our money ended up in these dubious instruments. This blog now also discusses other financial topics, such as straddles, options, gold, natural gas, agri/food stocks, and the collapse of the US Dollar.

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Friday, June 25, 2010

In the 1980s' corporate profits totalled $4T. The financial sector made $400B at that time (10%)

Today corporate profits are $6T, however financials make $2.5T.

In other words, 40% of all the money earned in corporate America and all of 2 decades worth of growth going to the Financials - as opposed to productive activities

Phil says: "Not only that, but that $2.5Tn is AFTER bonuses and dividends that add another $2.5Tn to the total so our of $8.5Tn earned in coprorate America, 60% goes to one sector. That’s what a cancer does, it sucks resources away from the healty organs in the body and eventually grows big enough to kill it. America has gone from a country where investors make money by investing in companies that build things and sell things and create jobs to a country where investors gamble with "investing institutions" and, rather than put money into creating energy solutions, we trade 6Bn barrels of oil per month back and forth on the NYMEX in order to decide who will end up taking delivery of 25M barrels (0.4%) at the end of the month.

Why do they do it? The fees, the fees, the fees, the fees. Even the stock market has become a casino and not only do the financials make the fees but they build a culture that tells you to BUYBUYBUY and SELLSELLSELL every other day so they can rake and rake and rake those fees but that is not enough for them - they also have to insert themselve in as Market Makers where they make money on the spread every time you buy and sell but that is not enough and they then track your trading and write programs to analyze your trading patterns so they can bid against you - YOU, their CLIENT! "

(Phil Davis runs an excellent daily trading chat, using lots of options, which you can access here as a free trial).